Not the End of the World by Kate Atkinson

Arthur is a precocious eight-year-old boy whose mother is a B-list celebrity more concerned with the state of her bank account than with her son's development. Then an enigmatic young nanny named Missy introduces him to a world he never knew existed.

Kate Atkinson lives in Edinburgh. Her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, was named Whitbread Book of the Year in the U.K. in 1995, and was followed by Human Croquet, Emotionally Weird, Not the End of the World and Case Histories.

The Guardian

Not the End of the World
by Kate Atkinson
Doubleday £12.99, pp248
Although Missy Clark is a nanny with a reputation - a kind of 'Marine Corps Mary Poppins' who is called in at the first sign of sniper fire - she adores her latest charge, a clever, enigmatic eight-year-old called Arthur, whose par...

Publishers Weekly

Atkinson, who began her career with Behind the Scenes at the Museum , a Whitbread Book of the Year, and enjoyed good reviews for two more novels, now gathers together this suite of comparatively loosely connected stories.

Book Reporter

These qualities shone in her first and most brilliant book, BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE MUSEUM (the Whitbread Book of the Year in 1995), as well as in two other novels (HUMAN CROQUET and EMOTIONALLY WEIRD), and they are equally evident in NOT THE END OF THE WORLD, a collection of 12 stories.